About Jack Helgesen

Jack Helgesen likes to beat up bullies (insurance companies, government, big businesses, abusers). He has built a successful career by winning big victories for the underdog.

Jack graduated cum laude with a degree in finance from Weber State University and received his Juris Doctor law degree from BYU Law School. In law school, he was an author of the book Summary of Utah Real Property Law, an editor of the book Utah Family Law Handbook, and an editor of the Journal of Legal Studies. He started his career in 1980 creating trusts and estate plans for wealthy retirees in Phoenix. In 1982, he moved home to Ogden and became a trial lawyer in hundreds of civil and criminal trials.

As a criminal defense lawyer, Mr. Helgesen became one of only a handful of Utah lawyers to win acquittals from juries in murder, rape and kidnapping trials.

As a juvenile court lawyer, Mr. Helgesen represented young Utahns in hundreds of trials and hearings. His firm has continued this tradition for more than twenty-five years.

As a medical malpractice lawyer, Mr. Helgesen won one of the first million dollar awards in a Utah medical trial. He and his partners have won settlements and awards in hundreds of medical malpractice cases since 1982.

As an injury trial lawyer for severely injured Utahns, Mr. Helgesen has won some of the largest settlements in Utah. He and his partners have successfully completed hundreds of injury cases in the last twenty-five years.

As a consumer trial lawyer, Jack Helgesen and his partners filed and won (at trial and through multiple appeals) one of the largest class action judgments in the history of Utah – more than $70 million – for more than 21,000 Utah tax payers in Brumley v. Utah Tax Commission, 868 P.2d 796 (Utah 1993). He and his partners have been winning consumer cases for more than twenty-five years.

Jack Helgesen has been a leader among American lawyers. He is a former President of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association, and was a Governor (for more than ten years) of the Association of American Trial Lawyers in Washington, D.C., the nation’s largest trial lawyer organization. For more than four years he was a Governor of the American Association of Justice (Washington, D.C.). He is a Master with the American Inns of Court, and a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.

Jack and the law firm he started handle a broad range of legal matters for Utahns and their families. Jack has an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell America’s oldest lawyer rating service. This high honor puts him in the top 5% of American lawyers for legal ability and ethics. AVVO.com lawyer rating website ranks Jack as a “superb lawyer,” giving him 10 points on a scale of 1 to 10.

Jack and his wife Koy have eight children and twenty grandchildren. They tend kids, celebrate thirty noisy birthdays in their home every year, and travel when they can get away. Jack and Koy are BYU sports fans, and are Ute fans when the Utes are not playing BYU (three of their sons are graduates of the University of Utah). Jack and Koy cheer on their alma mater, Weber State University (their daughter and two sons graduated from Weber).

At work, Jack enjoys helping his three sons (Craig, Kurt and Erik) as they help good clients who hire and trust them.

Layton/Clearfield Office

When we say our lawyers specialize…

Like doctors, Utah lawyers can choose practice areas they like. Unlike doctors, Utah lawyers don’t receive board certifications in legal specialties. Lawyers specialize by focusing their practice by training and type of case. Most of our competitor attorneys in northern Utah work alone or in very small groups, and cannot easily specialize. The largest Utah law firms have specialized departments with large legal bills. We think the size of our firm – eleven lawyers – offers you the best choice for a good dollar value